The wheel of time, p.1078
The Wheel of Time, page 1078
His expression was grim. Despite the afternoon light, his face was shadowed, far more so than everything else beneath the pavilion. He held her eyes still, and her breaths came quick and short. In the corners of her vision, she thought she saw something around him. A dark haze, a halo of blackness, emanating from him. It warped the air like a great heat. Her throat constricted, and words were forming. Yes. Yes. I will do as you ask. Yes. I must. I must.
“No,” she said, the word barely a whisper.
His expression grew darker, and she saw fury in the way he pressed his hand down, fingers trembling with the force. The way he clenched his jaw. The way his eyes opened wider. Such intensity.
“I need—” he began.
“No,” she repeated, confidence growing. “You will bow before me, Rand al’Thor. It will not happen the other way around.” Such darkness! How could one man contain it? He seemed to throw a shadow the size of a mountain.
She could not ally with this creature. That seething hatred, it terrified her, and terror was an emotion with which she was unfamiliar. This man could not be allowed freedom to do as he wished. He had to be contained.
He watched her for a moment longer. “Very well,” he said. His voice was ice.
He spun, stalking away from the pavilion, not looking back. His entourage followed; they all, including the marath’damane with the braid, looked disturbed. As if they themselves weren’t certain what—or who—they followed in this man.
Tuon watched him go, panting. She could not let the others see how rattled she was. They couldn’t know that, in that last moment, she’d feared him. She watched until his mounted figure had passed beyond the hillsides. And still her hands shook. She did not trust herself to speak.
Nobody spoke in the time it took her to calm herself. Perhaps they were as shaken as she. Perhaps they sensed her worry. Finally, long after al’Thor had gone, Tuon stood. She turned and regarded the collected Blood, generals, soldiers and guards. “I am the Empress,” she said in a soft voice.
As one, they fell to their knees, even the High Blood prostrating themselves.
That was the only ceremony needed. Oh, there would be a formal crowning back in Ebou Dar, with processions and parades and audiences. She would accept the personal oaths of allegiance from each member of the Blood, and would have the chance—by tradition—to execute any of them by her own hand, without reason, who she felt had opposed her ascent to the throne.
There would be all of that and more. But her declaration was the true coronation. Spoken by the Daughter of the Nine Moons after the period of mourning.
Festivities began the moment she bade them all rise. There would be a week of jubilation. A necessary distraction. The world needed her. It needed an empress. From this moment on, everything would change.
As the da’covale rose and began to sing the praises of her coronation, Tuon stepped up to General Galgan. “Pass the word to General Yulan,” she said softly. “Tell him to prepare his attack against the marath’damane of Tar Valon. We must strike against the Dragon Reborn, and quickly. This man cannot be allowed to gain any more strength than he already has.”
CHAPTER 36
The Death of Tuon
“I began my journey in Tear,” Verin said, sitting down on Mat’s best chair, made of dark walnut with a nice tan pillow. Tomas took up position behind her, hand on the pommel of his sword. “My goal was to make my way to Tar Valon.”
“Then how did you end up here?” Mat asked, still suspicious as he seated himself on the pillowed bench. He hated the thing; it was completely impossible to sit on it in any way that was comfortable. Pillows didn’t help. Somehow, they made the seat more awkward. Bloody thing must have been designed by insane, cross-eyed Trollocs and built from the bones of the damned. That was the only reasonable explanation.
He shifted on the bench, and nearly called for another chair, but Verin was continuing. Mandevwin and Talmanes were just inside the tent, the former standing with folded arms, the latter settling himself on the floor. Thom sat on the floor on the other side of the room, watching Verin with calculating eyes. They were all in Mat’s smaller audience tent, which was intended only for short conferences between officers. Mat hadn’t wanted to bring Verin to his actual sitting tent, as it was still spread out with his plans for raiding Trustair.
“I ask myself the same question, Master Cauthon,” Verin said, smiling, her aging Warder standing behind her chair. “How did I end up here? It certainly wasn’t my intention. And yet here I am.”
“You say it almost as if it were an accident, Verin Sedai,” Mandevwin said. “But we’re speaking of a distance of several hundred leagues!”
“Plus,” Mat added, “you can Travel. So if you intended to go to the White Tower, then why not just bloody Travel there and be done with it?”
“Good questions,” Verin said. “Indeed. Might I have some tea?”
Mat sighed, shifting on the devil bench again, and waved for Talmanes to give the order. Talmanes rose and ducked outside for a moment to pass the word, then returned and sat down again.
“Thank you,” Verin said. “I find myself quite parched.” She projected that familiar distracted air that was so common to sisters from the Brown Ajah. Because of the holes in his memory, Mat’s first meeting with Verin was fuzzy to him. In fact, his memory of her at all was fuzzy. But he did seem to remember thinking she had the temperament of a scholar.
This time, studying her, her mannerisms seemed too exaggerated to him. As if she were leaning on the preconceptions about Browns, using them. Fooling people, like a street performer taking in country boys with a clever game of three-card shuffle.
She eyed him. That smile on the corner of her lips? That was the smile of a jackleg who didn’t care that you were on to her con. Now that you understood, you could both enjoy the game, and perhaps together you could dupe someone else.
“Do you realize how strongly ta’veren you are, young man?” Verin asked.
Mat shrugged. “Rand’s the one you want for that sort of thing. Honestly, I’m barely anything compared to him.” Blasted colors!
“Oh, I wouldn’t consider downplaying the Dragon’s importance,” Verin said, chuckling. “But you can’t hide your light in his shadow, Matrim Cauthon. Not in the presence of any but the blind, at least. In any other time, you’d undoubtedly be the most powerfully ta’veren individual alive. Probably the most powerful to have lived in centuries.”
Mat shifted on the bench. Bloody ashes, he hated the way that made him look as if he was squirming. Maybe he should just stand up. “What are you talking about, Verin?” he said instead. He folded his arms and tried to at least pretend that he was comfortable.
“I’m talking about how you yanked me halfway across the continent.” Her smile widened as a soldier entered with a steaming cup of mint tea. She took it gratefully, and the soldier retreated.
“Yanked you?” Mat said. “You were looking for me.”
“Only after I determined that the Pattern was tugging me somewhere.” Verin blew on her tea. “That meant you or Perrin. It couldn’t have been Rand’s fault, since I’d been able to leave that one easily.”
“Rand?” Mat asked, dismissing yet another flash of colors. “You were with him?”
Verin nodded.
“How . . . did he seem?” Mat said. “Is he . . . you know. . . .”
“Mad?” Verin asked.
Mat nodded.
“I’m afraid so,” Verin said, lips downturning slightly. “I think he’s still in control of himself, however.”
“Bloody One Power,” Mat said, reaching beneath his shirt to touch the comforting foxhead medallion.
Verin looked up. “Oh, I’m not convinced young al’Thor’s problems are completely due to the Power, Matrim. Many would like to blame his temperament on saidin, but to do that is to ignore the incredible stresses that we’ve settled on that poor boy’s shoulders.”
Mat raised an eyebrow, glancing at Thom.
“Either way,” Verin sipped her tea, “one cannot blame too much on the taint, as it will no longer affect him.”
“It won’t?” Mat asked. “He’s decided to stop channeling?”
She laughed. “A fish would sooner stop swimming. No, the taint will no longer affect him because the taint is no more. Al’Thor cleansed saidin.”
“What?” Mat asked sharply, sitting up.
Verin sipped her tea.
“Are you serious?” Mat asked.
“Quite,” she replied.
Mat glanced at Thom again. Then he plucked at his coat and ran a hand through his hair.
“What are you doing?” Verin asked with amusement.
“I don’t know,” Mat said, feeling sheepish. “I guess I just think I should feel different, or something. The whole world up and changed on us, didn’t it?”
“You could say that,” Verin said, “though I would argue that the cleansing itself is more like a pebble thrown into a pond. The ripples will take some time to reach the shore.”
“A pebble?” Mat asked. “A pebble?”
“Well, perhaps more of a boulder.”
“A bloody mountain if you ask me,” Mat muttered. He settled back on the awful bench.
Verin chuckled. Flaming Aes Sedai. Did they have to be like that? It was probably another oath they took and told nobody about, something to do with acting mysterious. He stared at her. “What was that chuckle for?” he finally demanded.
“Nothing,” she said. “I merely suspect that you will soon feel a little of what I did this last month.”
“Which was?”
“Well,” she said. “I believe I was talking about that before we got sidetracked on irrelevant topics.”
“On the flaming cleansing of the True Source,” Mat muttered. “Honestly.”
“I experienced the most curious of events,” Verin continued. Ignoring Mat, of course. “You may not be aware of this, but in order to Travel from a location, you need to spend time in it. Usually, stopping in a place for an evening is enough. Consequently, after parting from the Dragon, I made my way to a nearby village and took a room at the inn. I settled down, learning the room and preparing to open a Gateway in the morning.
“In the middle of the night, however, the innkeeper arrived. He explained with chagrin that I needed to be moved to another room. It appeared that a leak had been discovered in the roof above my room, and it would soon seep through my ceiling. I protested, but he was insistent.
“And so I moved across the hall and began learning that room. Just when I was feeling I knew it well enough to open a gateway, I was interrupted again. This time, the innkeeper—more embarrassed—explained that his wife had lost her ring in that room during early morning cleaning. The woman awoke in the night and was very upset. The innkeeper—looking quite tired—apologetically wanted to move me again.”
“And?” Mat asked. “Coincidence, Verin.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, then smiled as he shifted on the bench again. Burn it all, he wasn’t squirming!
“I refused to be moved, Matrim,” she said. “I told the innkeeper he was quite welcome to search the room after I left, and promised that I would not take any rings I discovered with me. Then I firmly shut the door on him.” She sipped her drink. “A few minutes later, the inn caught fire—a coal from the hearth rolled to the floor and ended up burning the entire place to the ground. Everyone escaped, fortunately, but the inn was a loss. Tired and bleary-eyed, Tomas and I had to move on to the next village and find rooms there instead.”
“So?” Mat said. “Still sounds like a coincidence.”
“This continued for three days,” Verin said. “I was interrupted even when I tried to learn a place outside a building. Random passersby asking to share the fire, a falling tree crashing down in camp, a flock of sheep wandering by, an isolated storm. Various random events always contrived to keep me from learning the area.”
Talmanes whistled softly. Verin nodded. “Each time I tried to learn an area, something went wrong. I was inevitably moved for some reason. However, when I decided I wasn’t going to do anything to learn a location and wasn’t planning to make a gateway, nothing happened. Another person might have simply moved on and given up on Traveling for the time, but my nature asserted itself, and I found myself studying the phenomenon. It was quite regular.”
Bloody ashes. That was the sort of thing Rand was supposed to do to people. Not Mat. “By your account, you should still be in Tear.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I soon started to feel a tugging on me. Something pulling me, yanking me. As if. . . .”
Mat shifted again. “As if someone’s got a bloody fishhook inside of you? And is standing far away, pulling gently—but insistently—on it?”
“Yes,” Verin said. She smiled. “What a clever description.”
Mat didn’t respond.
“I decided to use more mundane means to make my voyage. I thought that maybe my inability to Travel had something to do with al’Thor’s proximity, or perhaps the gradual unraveling of the Pattern due to the Dark One’s influence. I secured a place in a merchant caravan traveling northward toward Cairhien. They had an empty wagon they were willing to rent for a reasonable rate. I was quite fatigued from my days spent staying up all hours because of fires, crying babies and constant moves from one inn room to another. As such, I fear I slept much longer than I should have. Tomas napped as well.
“When we awoke, we were surprised to discover that the caravan had taken a turn to the northwest instead of heading toward Cairhien. I spoke with the caravan master, and he explained that he’d received a last-minute tip that his goods would fetch a much better price in Murandy than in Cairhien. As he considered it, he mentioned that he really should have told me about the change, but it had slipped his mind.”
She took another sip of tea. “It was then that I knew for certain that I was being directed. Most wouldn’t have noticed it, I suspect, but I have made a study of the nature of ta’veren. The caravan hadn’t moved far toward Murandy—only one day—but mixed with the tugging, it was enough. I spoke with Tomas, and we determined to avoid going where we were being pulled. Skimming is an inferior substitute for Traveling, but does not have the same limitation of knowing the area. I opened a gateway, but when we reached the end of our journey, we stepped not into Tar Valon, but a small village in northern Murandy!
“That shouldn’t have been possible. However, as we considered it, Tomas and I realized he had been speaking fondly of a hunting trip he’d gone on once in the village of Trustair, and I’d opened the gateway at that moment. I must have let myself focus on the wrong location.”
“And here we are,” Tomas said, arms folded, looking dissatisfied as he stood behind his Aes Sedai’s chair.
“Indeed,” Verin said. “Curious, wouldn’t you say, young Matrim? I accidentally end up here, in your path, right when you have great need of someone to create a gateway for your army?”
“Still could be coincidence.”
“And the tugging?”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“Coincidence is how being ta’veren works,” Verin said. “You find a discarded object that is of great use to you, or happen to meet an individual at just the right time. Random chance randomly works in your favor. Or haven’t you noticed?” She smiled. “Care to throw some dice on it?”
“No,” he said reluctantly.
“One thing bothers me, however,” Verin said. “Was there no other person who could have happened into your path? Al’Thor has those Asha’man scouring the countryside looking for men who can channel, and I suspect rural areas like this are top on their list, as it is more likely that channelers could stay unnoticed in such places. One of them could have happened into your path and given you a gateway.”
“Not bloody likely,” Mat said, shivering. “I’m not trusting the Band to the likes of them.”
“Not to get to Andor in a heartbeat?” Verin asked.
Mat hesitated. Well, maybe.
“I had to be here for some reason,” she said thoughtfully.
“I still think you’re reading too much into this,” he replied, shifting yet again on the burning bench.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. First, we should negotiate my price for taking you to Andor. I assume you want to reach Caemlyn?”
“Price?” Mat said. “But you think the Pattern forced you here! Why demand a price of me?”
“Because,” she said, raising a finger, “while I waited to find you—I honestly didn’t know if it would be you or young Perrin—I realized that there were several things I could provide you that no other could.” She reached into a pocket of her dress, pulling out several pieces of paper. One was the picture of Mat. “You didn’t ask where I got this.”
“You’re Aes Sedai,” Mat said, shrugging. “I figured you . . . you know, saidared it.”
“Saidared it?” she asked flatly.
He shrugged.
“I received this paper, Matrim—”
“Call me Mat,” he said.
“I received this paper, Matrim, from a Darkfriend,” she said, “who told me—thinking me a servant of the Shadow—that one of the Forsaken had commanded that the men in these pictures be killed. You and Perrin are in grave danger.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said, hiding the chill her announcement made him feel. “Verin, Darkfriends have been trying to kill me since the day I left the Two Rivers.” He paused. “Burn me. Since the day before I left the Two Rivers. What does it change?”
“This is different,” Verin said, growing stern. “The level of danger you are in . . . I . . . Well, let us simply agree that you are in great, great danger. I suggest that you be very careful during the next few weeks.”
“I’m always careful,” Mat said.
“Well, be more so,” she said. “Go into hiding. Don’t take chances. You will be essential before this is through.”
He shrugged. Go into hiding? He could do that. With Thom’s help, he could probably do himself up so that even his sisters wouldn’t recognize him. “I can do that,” he said. “Bloody simple cost. How long will it take you to get us to Caemlyn?”
